According to the Daily Caller, Jenner & Block, the law firm where O’Leary was a partner, disclosed in a Jan. 13 press release that she would be joining OpenAI to “lead global policy efforts.” Newsom selected O’Leary as his chief of staff after his 2018 gubernatorial victory, a position she held until stepping down in December 2020.
Before joining the Newsom administration, O’Leary served as Hillary Clinton’s legislative director in the Senate and later as her senior policy advisor during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to her biography on the California Partners Project website, a nonprofit chaired by Newsom’s wife. She also previously worked as a policy advisor on former President Bill Clinton’s White House Domestic Policy Council, underscoring her deep roots in Democratic politics.
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O’Leary will “lead global policy efforts” for OpenAI in what Jenner & Block described as a “newly created” role, signaling the company’s intent to expand its influence in regulatory and political arenas worldwide. That move is already drawing fire from conservatives who see Big Tech increasingly staffed by partisan Democratic insiders.
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Conservative podcaster Katie Miller responded to the announcement on X by asking, “Why are all their senior leaders anti-Trump liberals?” Elon Musk, a co-founder and one-time financial backer of OpenAI, amplified that criticism with a one-word reply: “WokeGPT.”
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OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently dominates the artificial intelligence chatbot market, according to multiple recent studies, giving its leadership outsized sway over how AI interacts with millions of users.
The company has already faced scrutiny, including a May 2025 incident in which an 18-year-old died of a drug overdose after receiving advice from the chatbot, raising questions about safety, accountability and the ideological lens embedded in these powerful systems.
